“The phrase great and abominable church means an immense assembly or association of people bound together by their loyalty to that which God hates. Most likely this will be a religious association involved specifically in sexual immorality and/or idolatry (that is, false worship—abandoning the God of Israel and worshipping anything else). … It would appear that … Nephi is describing a specific historical institution as the great and abominable church. To this we must add the information given in Doctrine and Covenants 86:1–4, which states that the great and abominable church did its work after the Apostles had fallen asleep, that is, around the end of the first century A.D.” (Robinson, “Early Christianity and 1 Nephi 13–14,” 178–81).